The life of a freelance writer is relatively easy compared to others. While some of you may argue this point, I honestly think that we have a lot of freedom, and as long as we have the necessary self-discipline (and then some), we’re really in a sweet position.

One thing that we may overlook, however, is that we have legal obligations as freelance writers. Just like any professional doing his job, a freelance writer has to take the legal matters into consideration. Legal counsel Daniel Perlman highly recommends every freelancer to pay attention to legal obligations, which may vary depending on the setup of your business. There are, however, three major things that you have to consider. [Read more…]

Freelance writers run the risk of having their content used without permission or compensation. While it can be risky working as a freelance writer, if you’re aware of the possible pitfalls, you have much better chance of preventing plagiarism of your writing. Take a look at these suggestions for protecting your work:

Trust Your Gut

If you are contacted by a new client and they ask you to submit content without a contract, it’s a good idea to tread lightly. Sometimes freelance writers have to take risks to get work, but giving your work away for free shouldn’t be one of them.

I have met several freelance writers who submitted samples of their work for a job opening only to find their samples published without being compensated. If you do send a writing sample, send content that has already been published elsewhere. Be clear with the client that the sample is already published, but provides an example of your writing. If the client continues to push you for a new sample without an agreement about compensation, trust your gut and do what you think is right for the situation.

Secure a Contract

A few clients may want to work with you in the short term or just for one project, but be careful about writing anything without a contract. There’s nothing wrong with requesting a written agreement that states the client will not use your content without paying for it.

If a client insists on hiring you without an agreement in place, share your concerns. Get as much information as you can in an email about use of your content so you have documentation in case they publish your work without payment and you have to go after them for compensation.

Understand Ownership

If you give up ownership of your writing after it has been submitted, make sure you understand the ramifications of this decision. If you have a byline, determine if you will be able to retain that byline once you stop working for the client. The last thing you want to do is write hundreds of articles only to find your byline has been stripped from your work once you part ways with the client.

Come to Terms on Editing

Few things are more frustrating as a freelance writer than pouring yourself into an article only to discover your words have been warped by a heavy-handed editor. Ensure an editor can’t drastically reword your content so the meaning of what you originally wrote is lost. Ask to be in charge of major revisions to your work and have a last say on final edits. If the writing is in your name, you don’t want a poor or inexperienced editor to make you look like a bad writer.

Keep Copies

The main way to keep your work from being plagiarized is to keep a copy of everything you write. When submitting content to new or potential clients, cc yourself on the email for your records. It’s a good idea to purchase a subscription to Copyscape, an online plagiarism detection tool that searches the Internet for similar text published on the web.

Have you ever had your writing stolen or misused; if so, how did you handle it and what would you recommend to your fellow freelance writers?

Sarah is the Content Manager and a Writer at Virtual Vocations, the one-stop shop for telecommuters looking for legit jobs. With several years of marketing and writing experience, Sarah managed a group of freelance writers for a marketing firm before venturing out into the telecommute world. Follow Sarah on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook.

File sharing has been around ever since digital files existed. From sharing files using floppy disks to using online platforms – these are all forms of file sharing. With the advances in technology, however, file sharing has become such a widespread activity.

There is the common misconception that file sharing – and thus the platforms allowing them – is automatically related to shady activities. While this idea may be justified, there are actually a lot of legitimate uses for file sharing platforms: sharing copies of your ebook, sharing photos of your vacation, and so on.

When it comes to file sharing platforms, I suppose there is no cut and dried answer. Take for example one of the newest platforms to hit the news – Kim Dotcom’s MEGA. You may be familiar with the name Kim Dotcom. That’s because he is the founder of now defunct Megaupload, which banged heads with the law last year. The entrepreneur has not taken things lying down, and he has made a comeback with MEGA.

One would understand how it can be attractive to users. How does 50GB worth of FREE storage sound? Even Dropbox cannot compete with that! Here’s an infographic to give you more information about MEGA.

MEGA: Privacy or Piracy

Those things being considered, I personally think that file sharing platforms are not inherently evil. It’s in the way that you use them, don’t you think? Why don’t you share your thoughts?

There are three major types of intellectual property law: Copyright, Patent and Trademark.

The distinction between the three can often be confusing and gray, but in general copyright protects artistic expressions (literature, movies, photos, music, etc.), patents protect ideas and inventions and trademark protects any “mark” associated with a business.

However, trademark is very different from other areas of intellectual property. You don’t run afoul of the law simply by copying the mark itself but, as a tradeoff, trademarks can protect a much wider variety of things that would not fall under any other area of protection.

Yet, at the same time, trademark often overlaps with copyright, especially when dealing with some logos, and there is a great deal of confusion between copyright and trademark in discussions online.

All in all, trademark is a thorny and often misunderstood area of intellectual property law that demands a closer look, especially if you routinely write about companies or use trademarks in your post.

“In short, having copyright in your freelance writing projects not only gives you a guarantee that you will always own your work and a means to enforce the terms of the contract, it also gives you peace of mind.”

Ever since I started writing at Plagiarism Today and especially since I started this column, I’ve been hearing a lot from freelance writers who have been scammed or otherwise victimized by unscrupulous clients. Though the good news is that such bad clients are very rare in the big scheme of things, they are common enough that almost every freelancer, if they remain active long enough, will run into one or two over the course of their career.

By now, we all know that, when signing freelance writing contracts, you need to be copyright smart and make sure that you aren’t giving away more rights to your work than you intended.

But many don’t understand what the big deal about signing over copyright to their work is. Most freelance writers don’t resell the same work to several clients, and act that is considered to be very bad form when it is done without prior knowledge, and often times freelance writers never have any intention to ever return to the topic again.

In short, for many freelance writers, once they submit a work, they are done with it and probably won’t ever see it again.

But, while this is true, that doesn’t mean that you can simply toss the copyright to the piece aside and be done with it completely. Even if you never think you’re going to look at the work again, there are many reasons why signing over the copyright is a bad idea or, at the very least, something you should think twice about.

With that in mind, here are five very good reasons to keep copyright in the works you write for others. [Read more…]

Turning in an assignment is the goal of pretty much every freelancer. It’s the moment where they can send their invoice, collect payment and, generally make a living. If you don’t reach this point regularly, you’ll likely soon find yourself looking for another career.

That being said, the moment you turn in your assignment is also something of a point of no return. Once you send the email, share the Google Doc or otherwise turn in what you have completed, you’ve not only submitted that work for revenue, you’ve also distributed it to a third party, an important step legally and it is generally the final step before the work is sent out to the much broader public.

As such, before you click “submit”, it’s worthwhile to take a moment, evaluate your work and make sure that you don’t find yourself in any legal trouble for your work.

After all, the last thing you want is for something you submit to come back and bite you and/or your client after it’s published online. With that in mind, here are five questions you should ask every time you get ready to submit a new article, just to make sure you’re on the right side of the law. [Read more…]

If you work as a freelance writer long enough, it’s bound to happen: Something you’ve written will be infringed. Whether it’s marketing copy being lifted by a competitor, a blog post pilfered by a scraper or something else altogether, the work you were paid for will be used by someone else unlawfully.

But putting a stop to it can actually be very difficult. There are three parties involved, the infringer, the client and yourself. The dynamics between the three of them are, at times, complicated.

So who has the responsibility and/or the ability to enforce copyright in freelance-created works? The answer is fairly complicated and depends heavily on the situation.

However, with some planning before the contract is signed, these issues can be ironed out easily and headaches down the road can be avoided. [Read more…]

In an ideal universe, the law is there to protect both parties in a contract equally. The freelancer and the client would both have guards to prevent the other from doing something unscrupulous or somehow taking advantage of the other.

Of course, in an ideal universe, justice would be free, it would be immediate and it would never make any mistakes.

Unfortunately though, we don’t live in a perfect world and, in many regards, that legal playing field is very much tilted against the freelancer. Not only do clients, typically, have more money but the global nature of the Web and, at times, the laws themselves only serve to make things worse.

On that note though, here are just some of the grim realities that our imperfect system has created and what they mean for you as you try to earn a living selling your writing. [Read more…]